My grandma’s finally moving to a new assisted living center. It’s going to be so nice for her. She’s not happy about moving but she did love that they had cupcakes and drinks as a goodbye to her.

My grammy’s wearing lavender.

~~~

The fair’s in town and we’ll probably miss it. It’s fun to go once a year so I can “people watch” (“Nice tube top — how come you can’t keep your boobs in it?”, “Did you get that belt buckle with your name on it made here –I need to get one too–it’d go with all of my outfits”) but not worth the $8 entry fee per person. I also like to go to stuff myself with horrible fair food. Makes me so sick every time.

Tuesday, 5.16 miles (on a high school track Up North) w/average mile/minute 8:43

Thursday, 11.10 miles w/average mile/minute 8:28

Friday(TODAY), 7.13 miles with average mile/minute 8:47

What’s my favorite part of my run? …. Being done, of course. There’s that great sense of pride for getting out there and doing it but I just want to be home. I, for the most part, don’t enjoy the actual running part. Please?!

I wanted to run early this morning. I started later than I’d like because I wanted to run with my daughter and she has a hard time getting out of bed. I covered myself with Off but I still got bit in my hairline by a horsefly.

My 2nd favorite part of my run is when I get to eat something like this….

My sister told me to grind up the flax seeds or I won’t realize the benefits. I just grind the seeds with my “shark teeth” as I eat so I don’t need a grinder.

Lots of favorites. I also love slipping off my wet, sweaty clothes and putting my dry jammies back on.

Earlier this week…

My kids and I got back Wednesday from a little trip Up North. It was beautiful up there. The weather was perfect. We had a brief visit with my aunt, cousin and her two girls.

They’re a riot. So cute.

Travel in comfort. Old J Crew dress and Ed Hardy shoes.

We visited a great Amish store. We picked up all kinds of goodies.

Found a little surf store with lots of Billabong clothes. I didn’t buy anything because I’m too cheap.

I’m not a wine drinker but I stopped in a wine store called Durand’s Wine Company to purchase a gift for some friends. I bought some white riesling for meeself. You know, one for them, one for me…

Leelanau Peninsula is in Michigan

I was drawn to the store because there was a sign that said “free wine tasting”. Oh, that’s for me. The cups were so small. And, they poured for you. How was I supposed to get a buzz? WTH?!

We left the Golden Retriever home with my husband but we took the Chihuahua. When she pants, she’s either really nervous or really excited. We’re not quite sure which it is. Either way, look at her clean teeth. What teeth she has left, that is. She just had a teeth cleaning a few weeks ago and she had to have five more teeth pulled. I think she has like seven left. I now have to soak her food in water before I can feed her.

Is she a bat or a rat? That’s my 2 1/2 lb Bella Blue.

4th of July’s coming. Have fun but don’t blow your hand off.

My favorite 4th of July memory…Blowing up ant hills with Adam and Erick using M-80’s. M-80’s are large firecrackers. We were around 10 years old and our parents gave us an endless amount of them do what we pleased with. Good times.

Sitting here with a bag of frozen peas on my left knee. It’s still not 100%. My knee is sore and weak. Creepy. Whenever I get an injury, I feel like it’s going to last forever. A week or so later, I’ll realize it’s gone. This knee thing’s a bit more stubborn which is really buggin’ me (that’s why I said creepy). I’ll keep icing it. I need to do some strength training. Runner’s World had some exercises that are supposed to help your knee.

My mom, my wonderful mom, joined a walking club with my favorite running store. We’re going to the store this morning to get her paperwork. I’ll bring the proper footwear in case we get to walk. If you don’t remember, my mom hurt her hip back in October (ripped this and fractured that). She was a mess. Plus, she has MS so she’s my gosh darn hero. She feels she’s ready to grab this walking think by the balls. Whoa!

I’m looking to purchase a foam roller of some kind because one of the exercises in RW showed one being used. I must own one. I’m hoping the running store has one.

ANIMAL STORIES:

1. We take our Golden Retriever swimming almost every day. When we’re done, I try to sit her down and dry her the best I can. I do this because I don’t want her stuck outside in the humid, bug infested heat and I also don’t want my house to smell like wet dog. When drying her, I use the metal rake brush because it seems to speed up drying (and pull off fur that ends up all over my floor and furniture). Yesterday, I notice she was reacting each time I brushed over an area on her back so I thought, “oh, she likes that” and kept going over it. Blood appeared and I realized I was hurting her and wanted to cry. What a BITCH I was for making her bleed. Turns out she had a huge hot spot. Fungus, staph, something that can happen if she doesn’t dry properly.

I have a bottle of OTC hot spot treatment which said to cut the hair around the area. “Well screw that doggie grooming session from a few weeks ago because she’s going to look like a dork by the time I’m done with her”. So, while Who Girl supervised, I started cutting and cutting and finally we realized the spot was huge (most of her back). Poor baby. We drove her to the vet (who was closing in 5 minutes and not too thrilled with our late arrival). He looked at her and gave her steroids and antibiotic. NO cone for Sophee. And, I didn’t need to cut all her fur. Poor baby.

2. At 3 in the morning, Mick open the slider door in our bedroom because it was nice and cool outside. A kitty came to visit and three of our cats knew it (the 4th cat was outside somewhere being a scavenger of dead carcasses). Frank, our black cat, growled at the kitty for about 15 minutes. Growling could be friendly sound because Frank growls daily when Mick comes home from work and Frank lovessss Mick.

Sophee wanted to get that kitty (to love him of course — she’d never hurt anything) which would involve her crashing through the screen so Mick made her get on the bed and sleep with us (lay — she did not sleep). Mick and I must have dosed off. Sophee didn’t. She jumped down and charged the cat. Thank goodness she didn’t crash through the screen.

I don’t think I went back to sleep after that. I tossed and turned for the new few hours.

No run today. I’m trying to run every other day. I don’t want to overdo it. This works for me (so far).

Zumba tonight (I hope).

After work today, I stopped at the bike store. I stuffed my Giant bike in the back of my Explorer in hopes they’d unload it for me (since I was wearing a long flow-y skirt).

I’ve had my bike over 10 years and I have NEVER gotten any maintenance done to it. Two days ago, I noticed a flat rear tire. That’s funny because I just replaced the rear tire tube on one of our other bikes about a week ago. Wonder if someone’s breaking in our garage to wreck our bikes?! No, because I’ve never done anything to my bike, the tires were actually cracked so I’m sure the tire tubes are getting really bad as well.

I told the guys to clean that baby up. I wanted new tires ($66 for two) a new seat ($35). I complained about the chain which he said was almost worn out (new chain $20). He said he could do a maintenance package ($65) so that everything was lubed up and operating properly. Everything, including tax, will come to $212. Ouch! I’m not too upset about it. It’s cheaper than a new bike and besides, I’ve never spent a dime on this bike since I’ve owned it. I get to pick up tomorrow after work. I cannot wait.

Came home and noticed that’s Brucee’s hair had gotten just a little long. Sat him down while Who Girl and I took turns shaving it.

Oblivious to the hair chunks we shaved out of his head.

Who told him that the battery died so he’d have to leave it like that for a day until we could get the battery charged up (it uses an electrical cord/no battery).

Brucee is a skinny dude but due to his poor posture, his tummy looks like a smiley face?!

~~~

Ran 11.10 miles on Friday, June 15th (9:23 average mile/minute) – I walked a little over a mile and a half. It was too hot and humid for me. I even ran with a bottle of water and I’ve never done that before. And, my left knee was sore. I know. Bitch Bitch BITCH!!

Okay, I’m being too hard on myself. I shouldn’t say I have horrible eating habits. That’s just a little too harsh.

I’ll just say my eating habits are strange and, at times, not the healthiest.

I eat a lot. There’s not much I don’t like (sauerkraut).

I try to buy healthy foods but I’m lazy so I tend not to use those healthy foods to create healthy meals.

I just came home from work. I ate a leftover shrimp taco (rice, black beans, edamame, tomato, onion). There were no shrimp because Roo Dog ate them all.

With my lone nonshrimp taco, I had a can of Progresso Light Beef Pot Roast soup. It was gross but I ate every drop. I hate when I stuff myself with food that doesn’t taste good. It’s bad enough when I stuff myself with the good stuff. I just hate to throw things away. I guess I’m a human garbage disposal.

“`

On a very happy note, I’m happy to report that my three kids went to our animal control to volunteer today. So proud of them.

My daughter says that when she’s shopping, she’ll sometimes see items that she hopes I, her mother, will not see in fear that I will purchase them.

Well, yesterday, I wore one of those items. My gold and black pants from Forever 21. They’re so ridiculous, I really like ’em.

~~~

The kids and I had some excitement last night. I went to the basement to watch TV and noticed something on the floor. Irritated, I went over to pick it up with intentions of throwing it in the trash. The boys would easily of left something like that. I’m always picking up after them. Well, it wasn’t garbage. It was a huge spider. A brown wolf spider. I’ve never seen one that huge (3 inch diameter?!) in my house or in my yard for that matter.

I screamed bloody murder when I saw it. I composed myself after 3 good screams knowing that it was up to me to get it out of the house. Mick was gone working in his office. No reaction from my three kids upstairs. This spider was so big, It wasn’t the type of spider that you suck up with your vacuum wand. It reminded me of a tarantula. I had nothing to put over it so I ran upstairs and got something to put over it. I tore back downstairs. The spider didn’t move when I put the large empty McDonald’s cup over it. I ran back upstairs and told the kids to get downstairs to support me. Without any of their help, I got it outside (Who screamed and Brucee stood on the couch).

I won’t put a picture here (gives me the frickin’ heebie jeebies) but if you want to see what it looked like, click here.

I’m still traumatized and can’t stop talking about the encounter.

And, I’m afraid to put my feet on the floor when watching TV.

~~

Today, I ran 10.18 miles. Both knees plus my tailbone were a little sore for the whole run. My average mile/minute was 8:20. It was nice and cool (60 degrees?!). It was my favorite temperature to run in. Either way, I was so happy to hit my driveway. I was uncomfortable not only because of my aches but I was also starving.

I worked from 4 to 8 tonight. Who Girl decided she wanted to run 6 miles once it was almost dark. She’s done this a couple of times in the last week. It got pretty dark the last 1/3 of the run. I got bombarded by a couple of bats (no one made a connection with my head). I think my head lamp riled them up?!

~~~

SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO…

I’m really ready for the movie, Magic Mike, to come to theaters.

“The law says you cannot touch, but I see a lot of lawbreakers out there…” (SQUEAL!!!!)

Today started out rough. It was supposed to be hot and I wanted to run but I couldn’t get myself out of bed to do it before work.

Then, I had stomach problems so there was no way I was leaving the house. It wasn’t safe.

I took a nap. I ate. I laid around. I ate.

At one point, I talked Brucee into riding bikes to the farm to look for the baby skunk. We found him in the neighbor’s yard (same exact place as where I saw him last night).

He was out during the day eating some dead animal. I worry for the little guy because he’s not very smart. Last night he was standing by the road and made no effort to run when we got close. Plus, he was out in plain sight all day today. I expect he’ll get squashed soon.

Being it’s Monday, Who Girl and I like to go to Zumba but I was depressed for being totally useless today.

At 7pm, Who was ready to go. I wanted to request a nice chair in the back of the class. I could have held her water.

But then. ShaZAAM!! I was fired up after one song. The hour went fast. I was flying high and wanted to keep going when the class was done.

Who said she’d run with me. Who hoo!!!

At 8:50pm, she and I ran 6.62 miles. It got dark but no worries I had the head lamp on. We ran at an average mile/minute of 9:04. That’s slower than I wanted to go but Who threatened to walk at mile 4 so I stopped harping on her.